site.btaSofia Library Holds Its Ninth Annual Awards

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) will be honoured at the ninth annual awards ceremony of the Sofia Library on Monday. The prize is awarded for original presentation of the library's literary heritage, digital resources and cultural events, organisers said.

The annual awards of the Sofia Library traditionally honour the most widely read writers and the most active readers. The selection of the most read contemporary Bulgarian authors is made by the library's readership based on statistics from the electronic catalogue.

The Library reports that their readership is 91,000 people. In 2023 it has increased by 10,000 new readers. Over 60% of the active reading audience is young people up to the age of 28. The borrowed books for home are 630,000, and there are nearly 1,500 visits daily to the library.

In the nine-year history of the Sofia Library awards, the library's readership has increased more than threefold, and the number of borrowed books - more than twofold, the library added.

In 2023, the library has offered its readers nearly 22,000 new titles of books, 25% of which are by Bulgarian classics and contemporary authors. In 2023, readers were mostly looking for contemporary Bulgarian fiction, history, philosophy and politics, applied psychology, books on self-knowledge, healthy lifestyle, ecology, travel and tourism, memoirs, biographies and autobiographies of Bulgarian public figures.